Yesterday, in an article for the NY Times, wherein he criticized Newt for calling the Palestinian’s an “invented people,” Thomas Friedman wrote:

I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.

Unbelievable. This is the type of statement one would expect to find in The Israel Lobby, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, a book Alan Dershowitz described as a “hate-filled screed against Jewish participation in American politics.” With this statement, Friedman is perpetuating the nasty anti-Semitic lie that the Jews control Congress, and by extension the world. If only!

Friedman then went on to say:

The real test is what would happen if Bibi tried to speak at, let’s say, the University of Wisconsin. My guess is that many students would boycott him and many Jewish students would stay away, not because they are hostile but because they are confused.

I hate when commentators like Friedman put forward his type of misleading idea; that the younger Jewish community as a whole is drifting away from Israel. That is not the whole truth. I’m a Jewish student at a University and I would not stay away if Prime Minister Netanyahu came to speak at my school. I would gladly cheer him. So what “Jewish students” are Mr. Friedman referring to? Obviously, he’s talking about liberal ones. Every poll shows that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than Democrats, by a wide margin. That liberal Jews would stay away from a speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu, says more about them than it does about Israel.

And all this says a lot about Thomas Friedman.

Sam Levine is the Zionist Organization of America's Executive Director of the West Coast Office. He can be reached at SLevine@ZOA.org; http://zoa.org/

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1.
Buzzsawmonkey

If Bibi tried to speak at the University of Wisconsin—not that he’d be invited—he would be shouted down and likely mobbed by the “progressive” students, who have been taught that Israel is the locus of evil in the modern world. Some of those students might well be of Jewish ancestry—there are, after all, many such who wrongly equate support for leftist causes with some sort of attenuated, secular “Judaism.”

Some students might well stay away to avoid the violence. I can imagine many students of Jewish background also staying away because it is unlikely that many Jews who are not indifferent or hostile to Jews and Judaism would go to a school like Wisconsin in the first place, if they had other options; why willingly subject one’s self to four years of unremitting hostility?

All these Jews everyone’s talking about are Americans so throw that into an oil drum and see how it rattles around. This is not Israel so if you want to make an argument that Mearsheimer’s a donkey, which he very well may be, you might want to ixnay on the Israel bit as displaying ethnocentrism is not the way out of an argument about ethnocentrism.

Am very fond of thee and thy comments, o Buzzsawmonkey, but I think thou’rt off on this one. My daughter attends a first-rate (and not coincidentally very expensive) religious Jewish high school, and almost all of her classmates are hellbent on going to the most “prestigious” college they can get into. They simply assume that the quality of Jewish life on a campus relates strictly to the number of Jewish students attending, and also that they have been brought up to resist any amount of anti-Zionist pressure. They are likely wrong on both counts, but personal ambition seems to be the deciding factor here.

Feh. I like to keep in mind that the original meaning of “prestige” was “magic trick.” My girl has decided on a 2-year professional program instead, and her big brother chose a regular job, an Army Reserve enlistment, and a chance to consider his options as time goes by. So far they’ve saved me about a hundred thousand dollars, the dears!

Hey, everybody has the right to be wrong—but I do not think that, in this case, we necessarily disagree. I don’t know if the University of Wisconsin is accounted “prestigious” these days, nor, if it is, in what circles. It may well have a large number of Jews in attendance, but a large number of Jews in the student body and a lively Jewish life on-campus are, as I’m sure you know, two entirely different things.

To the extent a parent understands this difference, and also understands what a hollow thing “prestige” is, it is incumbent upon the parent—who will likely be footing the bill for at least some of that “prestigious” education—to exercise some influence over the child’s choice of higher learning institution, if that parent would keep the child from diving into the shark tank.

I’m curious, and it’s off topic, but did Thomas Friedhelm Friedman have any input in the Times man of the year selection being the generic protester? Generic meaning here those Arab Spring Muslims who shoved a bayonet up Gadaffi’s wazoo and the Occupy Wall Street crowd peeing and puking in the park for prosperity. Apparently the toilet trained Tea Party just wasn’t in the running, ever, probably because they’re just recycled leftovers from the 18th century round world era of mindless patriarchy–the same sort of people that created the design for Friedhelm’s mansion.

If bibi were invited to Madison, he would surely be disinvited, for fear of the disruption and violence his presence would “cause”. Of course, his presence would not be the “cause”, any more than how a woman dresses “causes” her to be raped. The rioting and violence is caused by their values system. Somehow they think it is acceptable, even laudable, behavior.

The real test for the U.S. is whether it will be able to pull away from selling its brain and soul to the lefty wimps represented by the U of WI and the Op Ed pages of the NYT before it is too late.

I would say that Bibi would get a big ovation at Liberty Univeristy or any U.S. Army or Marine Corps infantry battalion, bigger, I am sure, than POTUS. The question is, how is it that the ruling attitudes of a place such as U of WI, which is so divorced from the healthy American attitudes represented by the latter institutions, able to to exercise such influence in the U.S.?

Very well put, Mr. Levine. I belong to several pro-Israel organizations and am consistently impressed by the large turnout of young Jews at every event.

It is likely that Bibi would indeed be booed by many at the University of Wisconsin, which would put him in good company among other supporters of freedom and human rights. The radical left loves booing the West, while cheering our misogynistic, intolerant, freedom-hating enemies.